Today, I wanted to touch on something many folks forget about, and that is mail. People who are blind get bills, and letters, and junk mail just like everyone else. Have you ever wondered how they pay their bills or read their mail? That's what we are are going to discuss today.
I'll first tell you how mom and I do it now. It's much different than how we did it, waaaaaaaay back in the 70's and 80's and even the 90's. As most of you know, mom lives in our garage that we had converted into an apartment. I can help her go through mail much easier than when she had an apartment far away from me. Going through mail is really a torturous thing for us. Many of our arguments have occurred over the mail basket and bills. I hate it. With a passion. Mom hates it just as much as me, probably because of me.
The process goes like this: I open the bills and tell her what is owed to each creditor and then the ball is in mom's court. Mom has a computer with a screen reading program on it, which allows her to navigate most places on the internet quite easily. She can get into her bank account and pay any bills that we have set up in her online account.
There are times when the computer, the site, the connection, or the whole damn set up is not working and we switch to plan B or plan C. Plan B, is mom using her iphone and her banking app to pay her bills. Plan C, is to call Cindy to have me log in to pay bills. It just depends on how frustrated mom has gotten. Plan C is almost always her last resort. Just because she doesn't like to put me out, we honestly don't argue over bills nearly as much as we used to, but you just can't tell what the day will bring in regards to emotions with women. Friends, it can get ugly.
Let me go back now and tell you how it worked in the 70's. We will then move up by decades as the technology has advanced.
I actually learned to read by spelling out letters in the mail to mom. It was an evening ritual. I would open the envelopes. It was kinda fun back then. I would then read aloud each letter one at a time to mom. It sounded something like this, "S o u t h w e s t e r n space b e l l." Mom would figure out what I had spelled and then say the word to me so I would recognize it and possibly remember it. You can imagine that this took a very long time. She had the patience of Job. I think she was thrilled beyond words when a sighted person would come to visit so she didn't have to spend an entire evening with me spelling each word aloud letter by letter. The good news is that I got better with time.
When writing checks, mom usually had a sighted person help her until I was old enough to write them for her. Mom has always signed her name on her checks. I told her that after Don died, she can not marry ever again because I am not teaching her how to sign another last name. (I have taught her how to sign three last names, I have a right to be firm here.)
This was the process we followed until 1982. During that time, mom married husband number 3. I know, I know where was husband number 1, that's for another time. We will just call this person Burned Toast, because that's kinda how I think of him. Once ole BT came into our lives things changed and not necessarily for the better. BT took over everything in our lives. I can't tell you much of the saga of bill writing during that time, because I was not involved in it.
Let's skip forward to 1989, mom and I were on our own again and the process continued much like it was in the 70's. Technology had come a long way but still not as advanced as we are now. PC's were just becoming affordable for home use, but they were not really blind person friendly yet. During this time, mom and I had many verbal encounters regarding mail. I was teenager. Could you expect anything less? I'd rather watch 90210 or The Cosby show instead of sitting with mom and doing bills for what seemed like hours. Looking back, I could have been nicer, but then where would I challenge mom? She needed me to test her from time to time. ;o)
Once mom had married Don in 1994 things were really looking up in the technology world, but they still had a ways to go. That year I went off to college, so mom and Don needed more help in this arena while I was away. That's when you really learn how expensive it is to be disabled. They had to pay someone that they trusted to help them do bills. We were always lucky that, for the most part, there were good people there to help. Sadly, not all individuals are very trustworthy when it comes to checkbooks that don't belong to them. Some folks don't really have a problem stealing from people who are disabled. Sad but true.
Once, the 2000's hit, scanners became an affordable and an amazing piece of independence for mom. She was finally able to read her mail by scanning it into her computer. She still needed someone to help with check writing but at least she gained some control over her own finances that way. Think about it, do you really want people knowing what you owe, what you have in your checking account and the amount of money you make? Some things should be private and personal.
Hope you can now take a moment and be thankful for the small things in your world that belong to only you and your family. Because it is precious and empowering to have privacy and control over your own finances.
Until tomorrow. ;o)
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